The Spia Family Presses On (25 page)

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded as sight finally returned and a seemingly perfect meringue pie sped right for me.

This time I ducked and it flew through the open doorway and landed splat on Lisa’s boots, her lovely expensive, high-end boots. She gazed down at the lemony mess then back up at me, a look of utter shock on her face. The woman could take almost anything, but you better not mess with her wardrobe. Her whole body tensed and I could tell there were some evil revenge thoughts going on.

I had to take charge of the situation.

“Wait a minute,” I yelled, but the words were stifled when a piece of rum cake landed directly in my mouth. There was so much rum rolling around in my mouth, it was as though the cake was simply a catalyst for the booze.

I had no choice but to chew.

It was then that a luscious thought occurred to me, perhaps if I stood there long enough, with my mouth open, I could get an actual alcohol buzz.

“This is all your fault, you miserable old grouch,” Aunt Babe yelled as she hurled a ball of dough at Aunt Hetty, missing her shoulder by an inch. The dough struck Lisa right in the stomach. She doubled over for a moment, straightened, grabbed the ball off the floor and hurled it back at her. It landed on the island in front of Babe with a thud.

“Is this any way for women your age to act?” Lisa shouted.

Aunt Hetty turned toward her, eyes wild, face and body covered with way too much yellow and chocolate cake. Pink icing and some kind of brown goo dripped off her hair every time she moved. “Who invited you two?” she demanded, sticking a fist to her hip. “This is our war, not yours.” And she hurled a chocolate frosted bunt cake.

The perfectly formed cake hit Lisa right between the eyes. Her nose poked out of the center for a moment, but only for a moment because the impact knocked her right off her feet onto her ass. She went down hard on the non-skid cork floor. My aunts stopped throwing things long enough to make sure Lisa was still breathing.

There was a moment of truce, a sigh of relief, a collective intake of air while we all waited for Lisa to say something.

Then, knowing Hetty was partially deaf, Lisa yelled, “Are you people all nuts?”

“You’re darn tootin’ we’re nuts,” Aunt Hetty roared, while pitching another glob of cannoli filling at Aunt Babe. “Nuts because Babe killed Dickey. I have proof. She has that damn ring, and now we’re all going to lose everything we’ve worked for because she had to whack the bastard.”

Then she began pitching and entire tray of cranberry-pistachio biscotti at Babe, and before I could think about it, I was pitching biscotti right alongside of her.

Olive
Oil Biscotti with Pistachio and Dried Cranberries – Level Two Or Three

1/4
cup Koroneiki EVOO, or any delicate extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2
tsp. almond extract

1/2
to
3/4
cup white sugar depending on your sweetness level

1/4
tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

2 medium eggs

1
3/4
cup unbleached flour

1/2
cup raisins, or dried cranberries, or apricots

1 cup unsalted pistachio nuts, or slivered almonds, or cracked hazelnuts

To turn this into a level three, you can buy the nuts in their shells, crack them and slice each one by hand. Or for a level two, just buy them already shelled and slivered. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a pretty large bowl, mix oil, and sugar first. Blend well. Beat in extracts and eggs. Take a moment to breathe in the fragrant aroma, and let your body relax. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly add this to the wet ingredients, careful to scrape up everything from the side of the bowl. When this is thoroughly mixed, add the dried fruit and nuts with a wooden spoon lingering over the bowl to take in the sweet smells and how delicious the batter looks.

Wet hands with cold water and divide dough into two portions, making a log out of each one. Logs should be 2 inches wide and about a foot long. Take your time making the logs as perfectly as you can. Get into it. The process will focus you. Place the logs on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Pat each one down just a bit and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Logs should be lightly browned and the smell in your kitchen should put you in a candy-sweet mood.

Remember to enjoy the moment.

Remove the logs from the oven, cover with a lovely dishtowel and allow them to cool for ten minutes. Meanwhile, reduce oven heat to 275 degrees.

Carefully move logs to a cutting board, and allow them to rest for another five to ten minutes. Using an electric knife, or a very sharp blade, cut logs into 1 inch thick slices. Lay on their sides on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake about 8 to ten minutes more, or until dry. Can drizzle one side with white or dark melted chocolate.

Cool on rack and enjoy dunked in coffee or tea anytime you need a treat.

“Wait a minute,” Lisa ordered, standing next to the island between us, arms stretched wide. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

We stopped just long enough for me to come to my senses. I was participating in the madness. This had to stop, although the fact that Babe had the ring while the killer was busy planning his next attack on Lisa and me made me want to hurl more than cakes.

“That’s the point,” Hetty quipped and flung a glop of red preserves, using a huge spoon like a catapult, right at Lisa. She ducked and it landed on the six burner stove behind her.

Hetty reloaded and flung the glop at Babe. Hetty made contact and grinned her success.

“She’s full of bunk,” Babe yelled after the red preserves splashed on her now pink hair. “She’s the one who snuffed out Dickey and now she’s trying to pin it on me just because I have that damn ring.”

She threw a plate of almond biscotti at Hetty. Fortunately, the plate was of the thin plastic variety, so when it crashed into my nose spilling the biscotti all around me, it didn’t hurt . . . much.

Lisa was up and grabbed at Hetty’s arms. “You ladies have to stop. What about, you can poke an eye out?”

“Two eyes would be better!” Babe retorted.

“You’re full of dog doo, Babe,” Hetty yelled. “You know you did it, you little vixen. Admit it before I go for what’s in the walk-in.”

The walk-in contained anything they may have baked for an event, such as a wedding. I knew for a fact they had two weddings coming up that weekend. The walk-in would be full. This had to end or we’d have the wrath of two bridezillas on our hands, not to mention two mamazillas, who, I was sure, would be much worse.

I ran for Babe just as she was about to hurl an entire perfectly frosted Snoopy sheet cake, with the words Happy Birthday Sammy emblazoned on Snoopy’s belly in bright red letters.

“Put Snoopy down and step away from the table,” I ordered in my most commanding voice.

She poised Snoopy for launch, his little smile looking almost sinister as he bobbed up and down next to Babe’s head. “I will if she’ll admit the truth.”

“You did it, and that’s the truth,” Hetty said.

“Whore,” Aunt Babe yelled.

“Liar,” Aunt Hetty countered, her eyes narrowing to tight little slits.

I thought I’d go for the heartstrings. “You don’t want to do this. Little Sammy will be so disappointed without his Snoopy cake. He might cry all day.”

“It’s Sammy Nagossi,” Babe told me.

“Isn’t he in his nineties?” I asked.

“Ninety-four. He’s lucky if he knows it’s his birthday,” Hetty quipped.

“But it’s Snoopy. You can’t fling Snoopy. That’s like a sin or something.”

“She doesn’t care one hoot about Snoopy or Sammy or anybody,” Hetty protested. “After all these years, I finally figured out that my sister is heartless. The only thing she cared about is her personal vendetta—getting even because the bastard cheated on her with me and Carla. So she pushed that millstone on top of him, pulled off that stupid ring, and shot Dickey in the head so she could get her revenge. She’s worse than the men in the family. At least they wouldn’t have squashed the prick first.”

“Like I have the strength for that kind of action,” Aunt Babe shot back. “You’re the doll who can boost a fifty-pound bag of flour over her shoulder. You did it because you still think the son of a bitch killed your precious Carla. DNA proved he didn’t.”

Babe got a better grip on the cake. Hetty quickly went over to the walk-in and pulled out the top of a perfectly frosted wedding cake.

That’s when what Babe had just said struck me.

“Wait,” I yelled turning to Hetty. “Your precious Carla? What does that mean?”

Lisa said, “It means what you think it means.”

I turned to Babe. She nodded and shrugged.

I turned back to Hetty. “You’re a lesbian? Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I
—
”

She flung batter at me. “Don’t give me that Seinfeld bunk. In this family there’s a lot wrong with it.” She turned to Aunt Babe. “Now you’ve done it real good. She’s going to blab it to Benny and Ray and pretty soon no one will talk to me. I may as well wear a big red L on my back.”

Hetty put the wedding cake down, dropped to the floor, sat with a plop right on a smashed pound cake and began to cry.

Babe carefully placed Snoopy back on the island, pushing broken cakes and globs of cookie dough out of her way then she rushed over to Aunt Hetty, plopping down on the floor next to her.

“I won’t tell anybody, honest,” I said, but it was too late. Tears gushed as Hetty slid down on the floor in a heap. I’d never seen her cry before, not even at funerals, and believe me, in this family, there were a lot of funerals. I somehow thought she was incapable of any other emotion but contention.

Lisa glared at me as she walked over. “Nice move.”

I shrugged. “I had no idea.”

She leaned in and whispered. “Do you live on another planet or what? I think you’re the only one who hadn’t figured it out years ago.”

“Then why is she so upset if everybody already knows?”

“Sweetie, by definition your family has that don’t ask, don’t tell policy going on. It’s how a borgata thinks.”

“I know that,” I said, crossing my arms. “But it just irks me that I know so little about my own family.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow.

Aunt Babe threw me a sympathetic sigh while Aunt Hetty gazed up at me, cake-smeared cheeks stained with tears, her lipstick in big streaks across her lips and chin, cake, cookies, and batter encrusted on all parts of her squat little body. For once her hair didn’t stick straight up. If it wasn’t for the occasional brown glop dripping off of it, the new ‘do looked rather normal. “Nobody knew back then. It was our secret. Me and Carla were moving to Amsterdam to start a new life.”

“Amsterdam!” I bellowed, wondering why the heck would two middle-aged Italian women move to Amsterdam.

Hetty wiped her tears away with her gooey fingers, streaking chocolate chip cannoli filling under her eyes and across her puffy cheeks making her look like a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles. “She had connections. We were going to open our own marijuana bar. She even had the location all scoped out. While Dickey was busy in Italy buying that miserable antique millstone, Carla was in Amsterdam putting a down payment on our future. But we never got the chance to move, or even begin our love affair. She was murdered before anything happened.”

“You mean, you two never
—
” I didn’t quite know how to ask about the details.

She looked at me. Waiting. Then she said, “If you mean did we ever sleep together? No. We kissed a couple times, but Carla was a virgin and she wanted to wait until we had a commitment ceremony in Amsterdam before she’d sleep with me. She was like that. Wholesome. Pure. Just like our oil.”

Aunt Babe made a gesture behind Hetty’s back telling me that something Hetty was saying wasn’t true. “You better get ready for bed, honey,” Aunt Babe said to Hetty, while gently rubbing Hetty’s back. “We have an early morning.”

Hetty nodded and stood. “But who’s going to clean all this up?”

“We will,” I told her, wanting to hear what Aunt Babe had to say.

“You’re just like your dad. A sweetheart,” she said, getting up then carefully making her way across the kitchen. When she got to the other side, she took off her shoes and disappeared up the wooden stairway to the second floor. As soon as she was out of earshot, Aunt Babe turned to me and said, “What a crock of crap.”

Two hours later, the kitchen was spotless. I wore a soft pink silk robe with matching nightgown and slippers, courtesy of Aunt Babe. My hair was still wet, but free of pastry goo once again, and pulled up in a clip on the back of my head.

Lisa wore a vintage floral cotton robe over white silk pajamas that were straight out of a forties film, and Aunt Babe was decked out in a vintage cream-colored ensemble complete with feathers and big, belled sleeves that I was sure I’d seen on Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcé.